VIU_Magazine_Summer_2017

INDUSTRY INSIGHTS
Anastassiya Lapikhina is a certified Project Management Professional
with more than four year’s experience in international development, higher
education, and e-commerce sectors spanning the US, Kazakhstan, and Turkey.
THE ROLE OF PROJECT
MANAGEMENT FOR
GLOBAL ORGANIZATIONS
BY ANASTASSIYA LAPIKHINA
To be successful in a globalized world, large organizations,
be they international organizations, non-governmental
organizations, or corporations, must spread their
offices across more than one country with a hope of lowering
operating costs, moving the product closer to the customer, and
to optimize the management process. This tends to increase
the variation of business practices across the organization and
as a result the organization grows and becomes more diverse.
There is more and more need to ensure continuality in business
practices across the organization to maintain the organization’s
reputation or brand and to assure an efficient use of resources.
In this context, a Project Management Office (PMO) can be of
great value.
The responsibilities of the PMO can range from providing project
management support functions to actually being responsible
for the direct management of a project. By establishing a PMO,
organizations are able to establish a single methodology to
manage projects, as well as having one common entity that
has a high level view of the entire project status within the
organization.
STANDARDIZING PROCEDURES
The PMO is like a parent to all projects, providing guidelines,
policies, and standardizing project work. The exact role and
responsibilities of the PMO varies among organizations,
depending on business needs and the nature of projects run
by the organization, but the necessity remains for all large
organizations whether they are called the Project Support Office,
or the Program Office, or even grandly the Project Management
Centre of Excellence.
Variation in business cultures and practices across offices is a
key reason why PMO are implemented. Differing standards can
lead to misunderstandings among stakeholders can result into a
higher project failure rate. PMO solves this problem by providing
a standardizing policies and procedures, applying a consistent
project delivery method, and providing project tracking which
leads to consistent expectations amongst all stakeholders. The
PMO serves to align projects with strategic business goals and
unify the project work.
PMO
CENTRALIZED COMMUNICATION
The PMO becomes the common ground to develop a way of
working on projects globally and to keep stakeholders informed
worldwide with up-to-date and accurate information. In large
organizations with many employees it can be challenging
to achieve similar procedures and effective outcomes from
all projects. A single PMO entity provides centralized
communication about projects and continuity between projects
by keeping track of lessons learned, helping project managers
to become a part of the bigger unit, and providing them with
the best practices across from give similar projects across the
organization.
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE MANAGEMENT
One of the biggest challenges of implementing a PMO within
a large organization is often an institutional resistance to
change. Organizations are built on their employees who might
perceive a PMO as a barrier - slowing down project progress
and bringing high amounts of documentation and bureaucracy.
This can be overcome by explaining the benefits to project
managers and other project stakeholders, giving them feedback,
consulting during project implementation, and by providing
them with ongoing training on approved project management
tools, procedures and techniques. Ideally, PMOs should be
run by certified experts such as a PMP (Project Management
Professional) certificate holder that can bring industry expertise
familiarity with the best project management practices. Any
global organization that does not have a PMO, should stop and
consider, “why not?”
36 University Magazine, VIU Summer 2017